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#Wildstar – Shmorgasboard of options

Let’s see if I can find the link. I think it’s a fair assessment to compare GW2 to Wildstar in terms of content availability and options. I know most people compare to WoW but really, from 1-max, the only thing you’re really doing is PvE leveling. Crafting and dungeons are both, in my opinion, broken for people who level up. GW2 takes an approach of “do what you want”.

Wildstar gives you leveling through main quests, tasks, contests, open events, dungeons (hard!), and adventures (also hard!). Crafting is actually relevant and multi-dependent on other streams. In that I mean that if you were a leatherworker in other game, you would only need leather. Here, you need leather and plants and cloth. Grouping is also highly encouraged through not only guild “credits” which allow the guild to buy perks but also through renown, an additional currency to purchase customization options (housing, costumes, etc…). And that’s not even talking about the Path quests (I took Scientist).

All that said it makes me feel like I have “dog with a puffy tail” syndrome. I try to set myself goals when I play but darn if I don’t end up chasing rainbows all over the place. An example. I’ll be running a main quest in a part of the map. I’ll likely find another quest from an item on the ground. Or I’ll trigger a competition by finding an object, or killing some random enemy. Or I’ll get a quest given to me over the communicator. Or I’ll see my path icon which has me scan a bunch of stuff. So what started out as a 1-2 quest initiative usually ends up as an actual dozen.

Off the beaten path

And that’s not even counting me looking at the map for additional harvesting nodes. Oooh, a new node and I end up a bit further away from the core path and find more quests. Then when I’m done all of that, I look at the map and see there’s a section I have not explored. Or a point on the terrain that looks really cool. I end up going there and 90% of the time, the cycle starts again.

The “neat” stuff is that crafting stations aren’t super common, so I don’t end up spending dozens of cycles making items. Also, since item drops aren’t super common and I’m not actively farming materials, I can only make a few items at a time anyway.

Next up is running some adventures and dungeons. They automatically set your level based on the event, so you can easily run stuff lower than your level (or above) if you want. I’ve built a healer Esper, including AMPs but since play is based on damage, I need a 2nd set of gear in my bags.

Back to the original GW2 comparison. That game had the same effect, where you would more or less organically traverse the map finding new objectives. The difference between the two is that GW2 had absolutely no story linking the stuff together (other than the personal story, 1 quest every 3-5 levels). Wildstar takes a much more integrated story approach, at the hub, zone, map and entire faction perspective. What I mean is that characters appear in multiple places, adding consistency. WoW does this pretty well, especially after the Cataclysm patch. It’s good, it makes you feel part of the story.